Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a printing apparatus, a method of controlling the same, and a storage medium.
Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, a needle-less binding apparatus for performing a binding process without using a needle for a bundle of multiple sheets in an image forming apparatus, such as a copier or a printing apparatus, has been known (see Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2004-167700). Such a needle-less binding apparatus has been implemented in various forms. A typical apparatus causes a binding tool to apply a half-blanked or folding process to an end of a sheet bundle, thereby forming a bound portion. This type of needle-less binding apparatus does not use a metal needle in contrast to a needle binding apparatus for performing a binding process using a metal needle. Accordingly, the needle-less binding apparatus is effective in conserving resources. This apparatus negates the need of an operation of removing a metal needle during taking apart a sheet bundle, thereby facilitating the operation of separating into sheets.
In a typical needle binding apparatus having a binder unit of binding sheets with a staple of a stapler, the binder unit has a small size and is therefore movable. The binder unit is able to be moved to a position designated by a user, such as “upper right”, “upper left”, “lower right” and “lower left” positions of a sheet, and perform a binding process. On the contrary, in the needle-less binding apparatus having a binder unit of binding without using a staple, the binder unit requires caulk binding of sheets. Accordingly, the binder unit has a large size and cannot move freely. The user is therefore required to set sheets in a correct orientation in order to perform binding process at a position designated by the user, which is any of the “upper right”, “upper left”, “lower right” and “lower left” positions of a sheet.
If these two types of binder units are implemented in one apparatus, the user is required to change the orientation of sheets according to the binding position in order to obtain a sheet bundle to which a binding process has been applied at a correct position by a corresponding type of binder unit. This requirement forces the user to pay additional attention to the binding process.